Kings in Exile
by Francienyc
Summary: After graduating from university, Peter wonders what the High King of Narnia is supposed to do with his life in England. Post Silver Chair, immediately before the Last Battleall spoilers thereunto pertaining apply. Complete at last!
1. Chapter 1

_Kings in Exile_

**The Professor** had said "Once a king or queen in Narnia, always a king or queen in Narnia." This was true, and it was what had gotten Peter through everything up until this point. He had remembered how it was to lead, and treated all his schoolmates with fairness and kindness. He knew that he carried the title of King Peter the Magnificent with him, and he kept out of sour arguments and bitter battles throughout university, sticking only to his books and his principles.

All this had been possible, even easy while he was at school, because school seemed a holding pattern, a waiting for life to really begin. So Peter was happy only to remember his glory days in the exile of modern England. But now he was standing in his dormitory still in his graduation robe, and he realized he had no idea where he was going. Because he was a king of Narnia, he was the High King of Narnia whose reign was the stuff of legend. But nobody knew.

"Maybe that's what happened to Susan. It was easier for her to forget," he muttered. When Peter heard her talk of these empty aspirations he wanted to shake her sometimes. Other times, he wished that he too could forget what he was. What he had been.

He was making a halfhearted attempt at packing. The suitcases were thrown open on his slender bed, but he was merely picking items off his bureau and setting them down again, wishing all the while that just one of them could be something from Narnia, some assurance that it had all been real after all and not some fevered dream of fauns and talking beavers.

In the midst of his melancholy, there was a knock on the door and Lucy entered, all smiles and sunshine. "Why, Peter!" she cried when she looked around the room, "You're off in a few hours and you've hardly even begun!" Her chiding was affectionate, and Peter smiled as he watched her take a stack of shirts and pack them neatly away. "Goodness," Lucy continued, "You're not even changed out of your robe! The ceremony's been done for an hour. What on earth has gotten into you?"

Inspired somewhat by Lucy's busyness, Peter started to help her shift the contents of his drawers to his suitcase. His youngest sister had a brightness that took away some of the gloom that had begun to coat everything. There was little need to talk; for the moment, Lucy's cheerful glances were enough to get him moving.

"I know you're fond of pomp and circumstance and all that, but really Peter, don't you think this is carrying it a bit too far? You're wearing that graduation robe as if it were your best court attire at Cair Paravel." Edmund was leaning against the doorframe, his dark hair in slight disarray.

Peter smiled thinly at his brother, and Edmund stepped into the room.

"I see," Lucy said, looking closely at Peter, "I know what it is that's troubling you."

"What?" said both boys together.

"He wishes it were his court robe at Cair Paravel, at a festival with the mermaids singing in the sea, and Tumnus playing on his flute while the dryads and the satyrs danced."

When Lucy spoke, Peter could see the whole scene unfold before him. The Great Hall in Cair Paravel was draped in silk woven with threads of pure gold. Dwarf-wrought chandeliers dripped jewels from the ceiling. Outside, the voices of the mermaids mingled with the sound of crashing waves, and that music formed a lilting background to which the company ate. The food was heavenly, all light and delicious, nothing heavy to weigh you down so that you went on eating until you were tired rather than full, and when you got up to dance, you didn't feel sick but perfectly satisfied.

Better still was the company: dryads talking of a fine spring in the woods with the satyrs and the fauns at one end of the table, Beaver discussing the latest improvements to his dam at the other, and in the middle, Edmund counseling Susan on her latest beau and Lucy talking of her latest happy adventure. Sometimes there was a guest—a duke from the Lone Islands, perhaps, or more frequently King Lune of Archenland and his headstrong sons. Their voices added a new pitch and cadence to the familiar revelry, and Peter heard this even as he discussed the state of Narnia with them.

After everyone was tired from eating and the desserts had been swept from the tables—though Edmund forbade Turkish Delight and was much offended when a Calormene prince once offered him something very much like it—the dancing began. Tumnus would take out his flute and play a slow, lilting melody. All the fauns rose first, followed by the satyrs and the dryads, and their performance was lovelier than a geisha's and more lively than a swing dance. Peter always longed to dance from the first, but he felt that as High King he ought to preserve his dignity until some dryad or perhaps Lucy implored him to cast it aside by tugging on his hand. Then he would rise and join the company on the dance floor, dancing so fast and free his crown would fall askew, but that was alright because Lucy's hair was flying and Edmund's cheeks were flushed and only Susan, though she too was joyful in the dance, remained cool and pristine.

Peter came back to himself and realized that he wasn't in Narnia (though it seemed for a moment that he had almost gone back) and he looked at his brother and sister and said nothing.

Edmund put his hand on Peter's shoulder. "I know, Peter. It's hard here. We all wish we could go back."

"At least you did go back once more," Peter said, trying hard not to sound bitter. "Sailing with Caspian to the end of the world. How I should have liked to go!" When Edmund and Lucy visited Narnia the last time, Peter had been at the Professor's studying for exams. Not that it mattered much—Aslan himself had told Peter that Narnia was forever closed to him. Aslan had said a good deal more to him and Susan when he delivered this news, but it was so hard to remember when Peter thought of the fun of exploring the open seas with Caspian, who he always liked very much. So much, in fact, that he had yet to find a friend in England he would have enjoyed spending time with as much.

"And Eustace went back when we weren't allowed," Edmund added. "We know what it's like to lose Narnia, Peter."

Peter turned from Edmund and paced to the window. His strides were restless, but still they were the firm and sure foot of a king. "I just don't understand. What was the point of going if only to know what we are missing, what we can't ever have again?" behind the frustration in his voice, despair lurked. He didn't remember that in his last moments as High King, just before the coronation of Caspian, he had told Lucy that he might be able to bear it. He had forgotten that moment.

"I think," Lucy began softly, "the point is that we went at all." Her voice grew stronger and took on its deep confident ring like the pure bell in a church tower. "That we saw Aslan and we know him. We may not go back to Narnia, but having been there makes us different. It makes you a king, Peter, a true king in everything you are. It makes Edmund so just. I think that it has even made me a little better—at least, I don't ever doubt about anything, and that's because of Narnia. I have always wanted to go back, but what bothers me more is that we can't share this, because it seems to me everyone deserves to know and be so changed."

Lucy spoke with such conviction that both her brothers stared at her, transfixed by her words. Peter saw that the light from the window touched her forehead like a crown, though he couldn't be sure if it were really so, or just a trick of his imagination. Nevertheless, he went to embrace his sister and kiss her forehead. "Lu," he said, "You're a hero."


	2. Chapter 2

_Chapter 2_

**The trouble** was that Lucy's words, like Aslan's, faded over time. A week after arriving home, Peter was moping around the house in London, sitting in the window seat and staring out at the bleak landscape of chimney pipes and charred buildings. Finchley was still recovering from the war.

On one of the afternoons when Peter was brooding at the window, he heard Susan and Mother talking in the hallway.

"Please, Susan, just take him with you tonight. He's not been right since he got home, and I've been worried."

"But Mother, you don't understand—Peter is so strange; no one understands him. I'm afraid of what my friends may think."

"He's your brother, Susan, you shouldn't talk about him like that. I should think you'd care about his welfare—"

"Oh _alright_, I'll take him! But I'm telling you, Mother, it's a bad idea; he won't like it any more than I will."

A moment later the study door opened and Susan entered. She seemed huffy at first, scowling slightly underneath her crown of plastic hair rollers, but her expression softened when she saw Peter. She tucked herself into the window seat and spoke gently.

"Peter? Are you alright?" she asked.

He heaved a sigh before pulling his eyes from the window. "Yes. Fine."

"Because you haven't seemed alright, you know. I was talking about it with Lucy."

"Well then you should know what it's all about," Peter replied moodily.

Susan coughed uncomfortably. "Yes. Well. So…I was going to go to a party tonight with Derek, and I thought you might like to come. You don't seem to get out much."

"Susan, you don't have to invite me just because Mum said." His voice was a little weary.

Susan looked carefully at him. "But I'm not," she said at last. "I want to see you happy again, like you used to be. Come on, who knows, the party might help." Her imploring was gentle and sincere. More out of appreciation for her kindness and relief that at heart she was still Queen Susan the Gentle than any desire to dance, Peter accepted.


	3. Chapter 3

_Chapter 3_

**Derek** was a reedy boy with limp eyes, and he was clearly intimidated by Peter. This is not to say he respected Susan's older brother; rather, he acknowledged Peter only by surly sidelong glances while trying to put his arm around Susan's shoulders.

The other boys at the party were not much different from Derek, and Peter found himself comparing these stringy boys with no muscles and less noble bearing to the fierce Calormene princes and kind-eyed dukes of Archenland. Once there had been tournaments for Susan's hand; now there was only a boyish jockeying for position, an attempt to impress her with rugby pursuits, punch, and an ungainly dance. Once Susan had not been fool enough to smile on any and every male figure who bestowed his attentions on her. Still, Peter had to wonder if it was really a change in Susan or if he had never learned to adapt to England.

He was standing by the drinks watching the jerky dancing to the brassy music when the crowd seemed to part. At the other end of the room he swore he saw Caspian throwing his head back with laughter, and behind Caspian, a company of dryads dancing freely. He wasted no time wondering if magically a door had reopened to Narnia. He didn't remind himself that Aslan had said he could never go back. Edmund might have reminded him that as Narnian time goes, Caspian was not only grown up but dead; Eustace had seen him die an old man, but Edmund wasn't there. Peter rushed across the room, brushing people aside without noticing them. He was _sure_ it had been Caspian. He could also hear the DLF's voice and Reepicheep's piping swagger.

When he reached the other side of the room, there was a door. His heart was pounding in his throat, far harder than it had even at the Battle of Beruna, his first battle, where he had fought the White Witch. He reached for the knob and held his breath and closed his eyes. He stepped outside.


	4. Chapter 4

_Chapter 4_

**The air** he breathed in so deeply was not Narnian. Caspian was no longer laughing. He opened his eyes and saw Clapham all around him, gray and bleak and dripping in an evening rain.

He stood under the eaves of the house, trying to summon up an image of Narnian festivals in his head, but the pictures that swirled in his mind were incomplete, transparent ghosts which refused to take any solid form. Inside, he heard Susan laughing.

"Oh, Su," he sighed, leaning against the wall. "It wouldn't be so bad if you could remember too. We could help each other. But when I hear you laughing so carelessly, I feel like I have to carry Narnia for the both of us. Because one day you will want it back."

He squeezed his eyes shut and gripped the bridge of his nose as if to pinch away the tears that threatened. Perhaps Susan would never want to know Narnia again, but Peter had to believe it was still inside her. She couldn't turn her face away completely. That would be worse treachery than Edmund's so long ago. Still, he saw the ease in a blissful life of ignorance. Susan was so gay. She was really enjoying this party; there was magic in it for her, while he was standing outside miserable.

He felt rather than saw a girl at his shoulder, and he rejoiced. Susan had come away from the party to talk to him, to remember. But it was not Susan's voice which spoke.

"I saw you come out here all by yourself. You're Susan Pevensie's brother, aren't you?"

Peter turned. A girl about Susan's age was standing there, her skirt swinging at her knees, her blonde hair held back by a headband and curling near her chin. She was no noble Naiad, but she was cute in an earthy, English, and very real way. Peter smiled his gracious court smile to cover his disappointment. "Yes. And you--?"

"Oh! I'm Katie. I used to go to school with Susan."

Peter nodded, but he didn't know what else to say.

"Maybe—I wondered if you'd like to dance?" Katie ventured. She had a soft high voice, quite different from the clear voices both Susan and Lucy had. Peter liked the sound of it because it was something a little foreign to him.

He considered her offer for the space of a second. His inclination was to say no—and what? Stay out here miserable in the rain? Susan was having a good time because she let herself forget. He could try the same; it might just work. Katie wasn't Narnian, but she was real, and she was pretty in a very natural way. "That sounds good," Peter said.


	5. Chapter 5

_Chapter 5_

**They** went inside and had a cup of punch. One of the wisecracking boys had spiked it with too much whiskey and it was bitter. Peter had never been much of a drinker in Narnia…he glanced in Susan's direction and swallowed most of his glass in a gulp.

He took Katie's hand and steered her by the waist out onto the dance floor. He didn't know if it was the alcohol or the unfamiliar music, but he found he wasn't a grateful dancer at all. Katie tried to lead, but Peter was tripping over his feet. After a couple of songs even she gave up on the dancing and led him over to a sofa.

In this corner of the room boys and girls were sitting together, flirting and kissing. Perhaps more: he didn't exactly strain to see. Peter forced himself to think that Susan was over—well, not by the punch, but somewhere else.

Katie looked up at him. She _was_ pretty, and she hadn't laughed at him even when he was melancholy or danced poorly. Rather, she seemed to like him. He bit his lip, unsure whether he should just plunge in like taking a dive into cold water. He was just drawing in his breath when she revealed that she wanted to talk, at least at first. She told him of how she had fallen in love with the medieval literature she and Susan had been studying in school: Chrétien de Troyes, _Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Lancelot du Lac_, and how Susan told her if she loved chivalry "you should meet my brother Peter. He'd be perfect for you."

"I see what she means," Katie said with a bashful blush. "I wish there were still knights errant and ladies…I should so wish to be one."

Peter smiled indulgently, but in his head he said "You are lovely, but you are not a queen." Then it struck him that he was no king either. Not here. The powerful loneliness of his exile swept over him. At the same time he felt bad for Katie and he envied her; she had never seen the truth that was just behind a wardrobe door, but at the same time, she could not miss as powerfully what she never had in the first place. Yet still, if Susan didn't understand at least Katie did to some measure, and he kissed her because he didn't want to feel so separate anymore.

When her lips parted and her arms slid around his neck, Peter felt a pull from somewhere around the bottom of his navel, like a hook pulling him closer to her (though she was close enough already). He started to give in to the heady rush; it allowed him to forget for a second, but then he remembered her saying "knights errant" and he saw the tapestry of himself that had hung in the war room at Cair Paravel. He had posed for it when he was fresh from the Northern Frontier and a victory against the giants. He had just reached the bloom of manhood, the age he supposedly was now in a more prosaic England. The weavers had been far too generous to be sure, using real silver thread to highlight his chain mail, and exaggerating the handsomeness in his profile and the nobility in his face. In the tapestry, the High King stared off with hard, glittering eyes and a smile playing on his lips, exuding power, and joy, and honor. Victory hung over his shoulders like a mantle. Peter didn't actually believe the tapestry was entirely accurate, but he had loved it because it reminded him how much his subjects loved and admired him. He had been so honored that anyone could think of him like that he hung it in the war room to remind himself not only of what he had to be in battle, but those he went off to defend.

Now he was kissing some girl who loved those very same things in a damp corner of a Clapham basement. He found he couldn't do it. He couldn't become like those other boys and talk idly of rugby and unfinished lives. Pulling away from Katie so suddenly was cruel, but he knew that giving up all sense of chivalry would be crueler still. To the both of them. He left the party, praying that at least Derek had enough sense and honor to see Susan home.


	6. Chapter 6

_Chapter 6_

**The entire** party had blinked by in a minute, but the house was dark when Peter got home. He changed for bed silently, courteously, but the moment he pulled the covers up over him, he felt a deep and brooding restlessness. "I can't bear this," he thought, and he got up. His room was too small and too narrow, so he went to pace in the hallway, burying his nervous hands in his hair as he thought of the look on Katie's face. Then he tried to collect himself, square his shoulders and march with more deliberation.

He didn't consider the noise he might be making until Edmund's tousled head poked out of his doorway. "Peter!" he hissed. "It's almost three in the morning! What in blazes are you doing?"

Peter looked at his brother and felt a rush of affection he decided not to express. Edmund hadn't changed. He was still prone to grumpiness, as always. And if he were still prone to a peevish fit, wouldn't he still be wise in counsel? The idea struck Peter like a thunderbolt, and he stammered rather than said, "Ed, can I talk to you?"

Twenty minutes later, Edmund had heard the whole story, and he leaned back against his pillows, rubbing his chin as he considered. "Well, certainly you were right in not er, continuing with Katie, but I don't know that it was exactly kind to brush her off like that. She's probably awfully hurt. So you know what you ought to do. It's the only courtly thing."

"I've got to apologize." Peter squared his shoulders, prepared to take the blame he deserved. "I'll ask Su for her number tomorrow."

"But Peter, that's not the only problem," Edmund said quickly, sensing his brother was about to get up.

"It's not?"

"Of course not. You're not yourself, Peter. Everyone can see it. And I know you wish we were in Narnia, but don't you remember? When you left for the last time, just before Caspian's coronation, you told us you couldn't go back. And when Lucy asked if you could stand it, you said 'I think I can.' I remember, because that's what helped me when I got back from that glorious ride on the Dawn Treader and I knew I myself could never go back. What you said, and the look on your face. So what's happened? Why can't you bear it anymore?"

Peter picked at the crocheted blanket on Edmund's bed. Lucy had done it as her first project, and she had woven, however inexpertly, Narnian stars into the pattern, and Edmund's crest as king. "It was different when I got back. I was still in school. I knew what I had to do. But now…" he looked up, straight into his brother's face. "Where do I go now? Can a king be a short order cook? Or a banker?"

Edmund looked back at his brother, hard. He seemed on the point of replying when Susan burst into the room.

"You idiot!" she cried, picking up a pillow and hurling it at Peter. Both boys flinched. "Can't you do anything right?"

Edmund watched the pair of them shrewdly but remained silent.

"Su, if this is about Katie—" Peter began.

"Of course it's about Katie! You bolt from the party—leave me there—and then she comes up to me in tears. Can't you be normal for once? I thought you two would be perfect for each other. You could be her knight errant. She could be your damsel in distress. It was perfect, it was a way for you to forget all this Narnia business, and you threw it all away! What's the matter, Peter? She's a nice girl."

Susan stared at her brother with her hands on her hips. Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes were shining with tears of frustration and in truth, she was just as beautiful enraged as she was any other time.

Peter looked away from her and resumed picking at Edmund's blanket. "That's just it, Su," he said quietly, but firmly. "I don't want to forget Narnia."

Susan sighed, and now she did start to cry, a couple of tears sliding elegantly down her cheeks. "Peter, why are you doing this to yourself? All of this only causes you pain. So what if once we were kings and queens? It doesn't matter here, just as our lives here didn't matter there."

"I don't think that's true," Edmund put in.

Susan turned on him now. "And you! You and Lucy! Why do you encourage this? Can't you see what you're doing to him?"

Edmund scowled, his old expression of displeasure. "Do you think you're any better? Throwing girls at him was a fabulous idea. Really did the trick."

"Stop sniping, the pair of you," Peter said in exasperation. He got up and walked out of the room. In the hallway, he passed his own room and stood in front of Lucy's door a moment. He cracked it open, and when he heard the soft sound of her breathing, he slipped inside.

She was lying on her back in the moonlight in the deepest, sweetest sleep you can imagine. Her face was full of peace, and there was a hint of a smile on her lips. Peter saw in that face all the confidence of her childhood, her unshakeable faith in Aslan, in Narnia, and even still, in him.

He knelt at the side of her bed, as if keeping vigil over his sister. "Lu," he whispered. "Give me just a little bit of your strength and your courage. I just need enough faith to get by."


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

The days unrolled before him, and Peter was less sure than ever what to do with himself. Still, since that night he had stayed by Lucy's bedside, he had begun to feel like he was standing on a beach just before the turn of the tide. Something was about to change.

The restless feeling of this moment left him irritable and edgy. He paced far more often than usual, talked less. The only time he got any peace was when he was with Edmund and Lucy. At least they understood.

And Lucy…he had fallen asleep by her bedside that night. She had woken up from a dream with a sudden gasp, and this woke him. "Peter!" she exclaimed softly. "What are you doing here?"

Peter had lifted his head and looked full into her eyes and Lucy understood his pain. "Oh, Peter," she said, her eyes filling. She clasped his folded hands.

That was all she had said, but in truth it was all she had to say. She cared. She cared for him and she held true to Narnia, and that was enough. He took great comfort in the fact that Lucy was as steadfast as Susan was fickle.

Lucy declared she was going to knit him a blanket, and so in the evenings when Susan was getting ready to go out and their parents were watching television he would sit beside her and hold the yarn separate while she spun old stories of Narnia. Then the restless feeling would subside for a moment and he would rest in dreams of the battles of Beruna or days in the remote green of the Lone Islands or feasts in Archenland. Sometimes Edmund would join them, and the boys would relive old battles remembering the strategies that earned them remembrance for generations. They would get up and duel with Mother's long candlesticks, and Lucy would laugh at what a pair of boys they were.

On one of these more jovial nights, Edmund had stopped the parry mid-swing to remember the exact move Peter had been trying to recreate. "No, you've got it wrong," he said thoughtfully, his candlestick crossed with Peter's. "You're footing's wrong."

"I _fought_ the duel," Peter laughed. He did not notice, as Lucy and Edmund did, that his laughter was rather higher and tighter than usual. "How would you know?"

"I watched. I was judging with the King of Terabinthia, remember?" Edmund smiled.

Peter yielded his brother's point and was changing his footing when Susan came in the room. At first she didn't even notice her brothers.

"Lucy did you borrow my cream hair ribbon yesterday? I can't find it anywhere?" Only when she saw that Lucy was laughing at something entirely different did she turn and see Peter and Edmund.

Now it was Edmund's turn to laugh at her aghast face. "Sharp, aren't you? We've been standing like this since you came in."

"What are you doing?" she asked, narrowing her eyes.

"Polishing mum's candlesticks," Edmund retorted. Lucy snickered, but Peter felt he ought to restrain Edmund's sharp tongue.

"Ed," he warned halfheartedly.

"We were talking about the tournament Peter won on the Lone Islands," Lucy explained from her chair. "Don't you remember? There was that duke who was so keen on you that he spilled mead all over himself…and then you met that Galmian prince—what was his name, Su?"

Lucy's chatty reminiscences were clever reminders of one of Susan's favorite times. Peter could see the change steal over her sister, the flush that was creeping up into her cheeks, the quick glimmer of memory in her eyes. He also saw that Lucy pressed her advantage, and he stepped away from Edmund and watched as hard as he could, as if staring could make Susan's redemption happen.

"I don't remember," Susan whispered.

"You know what I remember best about that trip? The morning you all came back on the _Splendour Hyaline_. I was always on that ship; I never saw it pull into harbor. But I was watching from the terrace at Cair Paravel and I saw the ship come in with her white sails full and the sun behind her. It was so regal. And then I heard the clear trumpet sound to announce your return and I went running down to the harbor and you all came off the boat looking so tall and proud and _royal_. Hearing your stories that night was almost better than having gone myself. Do you remember how late we talked? The boys heard us laughing and they came in and then we went down to the kitchens and made ourselves a snack and when the servants heard Edmund drop a pot they all came in and chided us for not having waked them. Don't you remember, Susan?"

Susan was at her breaking point. Her eyes were full of tears; all her cool resolve to forget Narnia was gone. Peter saw this, and he stepped forward and put his hand on her shoulder. "It doesn't have to be like this, Susan. You can remember with us."

She shook him off fiercely. "Remember and what? Be like you?" she spat. "Wallow in my own self-pity? Alas, once I was Queen of Narnia, now I'm nothing! What's the point of _that_ when I can actually have a nice life? Maybe I won't be a queen, but at least I'll be happy once in awhile. Believe me, Peter, the last thing I want is to remember with you."

"Where do you get off?" Edmund demanded, and his cheeks were blotched in anger. This fierce, almost sick-looking expression was his most dangerous. "You can't talk to Peter like that!"

"Why not? Because he's 'High King'? Not here! Not anymore!"

Peter reeled back as if Susan had actually slapped him. She had said the thing that had been gnawing at him. Perhaps then, it was true after all and Narnia was a dream. Maybe this was the change…the tide was going out. He was on the point of giving in when Lucy spoke.

"That's not true," she said quietly.

When Susan reeled on Lucy, she had all the look of a cornered cat. "_What_?"

"It's not true. Maybe he doesn't have the title, but Peter is still everything that made him king. He kept it all with him. It was you who decided to throw it away in favor of lipstick and stockings."

Susan went very pale. "I did what I had to do to _grow up_. Apparently I was the only one who understood that we can't play pretend forever. Do you know what I had to endure at school because of you? You and your daydreams and your running up to me in the halls. And then I had to explain to all my friends that you were actually my sister. It was mortifying to see the looks on their faces. Do you have any idea how ridiculous you are? Do you have any idea how ridiculous all of this is? Real or not, and I sometimes think not, it happened when we were children. Ages ago. Are we supposed to carry on like this forever, with Peter moping about and you mooning? Ridiculous." She turned away from Lucy's tear-filled eyes.

There was a huge clang as Edmund dropped his candlestick. "You beast!" he growled in a strangled voice. "You filthy, heartless beast! How dare you speak to her like that?"

Susan tossed her head in defiance.

Peter saw Edmund leap out of the corner of his eye, and he tried to grab his brother, but he wasn't fast enough. Edmund bowled Susan over, and in spite of all the chivalry drilled into him, he was hitting her with all his might while Susan fought him tooth and nail. Peter jumped in to pull them apart and wound up part of the melee somehow. Eventually he managed to secure Edmund by the waist and pull him away from Susan. Susan scrambled to her feet and stood panting and staring at her brothers with wide eyes. Peter was still holding Edmund, and both of them were breathing hard as well. Edmund made an attempt to struggle, but Peter held him fast.

"Lucy's the best of us all!" Edmund growled. "How can you say that about her?"

Susan glared at her brother, apparently searching for a reply. Then, before Peter found something to say, she tossed her head again and declared in a cool voice "Fine. Have it your way. But I'm not going to be a part of this anymore. Not anymore. Don't talk to me about your fool's paradise. I don't care about lions, or swords, or strange wardrobes."

"Susan," Peter implored.

"I said don't talk to me!" Susan turned on her heel and stalked out. Peter didn't have the strength to hold Edmund back anymore, so Edmund broke free and bolted after Susan. Peter stood in the center of the room feeling as though he had just been socked in the stomach. He might be sick, he didn't know. Edmund's betrayal was a thousand years ago in Narnia, but it didn't matter now anyway. He had been saved. But if Susan refused to believe in the Lion, how could He save her?

"I always thought she would want it back," he muttered in a dumbstruck voice. He expected to hear Lucy say something from her chair, but when he turned to look at her, he found she had gone.


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8**

Here at least was something to do. Peter felt his muscles tighten and was glad for the momentary distraction of finding Lucy. She must have left the room during the fight, and in tears more likely than not. He focused on what words of comfort he might give her, but he couldn't think of any, so he focused instead on where she might be. He climbed the stairs and checked the room she shared with Susan, the bathroom, the closet. He poked his head in his own room and saw Lucy curled up on the bed in the dark sobbing into his pillow.

"Lucy?" he questioned softly. "Lu?" He sat on the edge of the bed next to her and laid a hand on her back. This appeared to make her sob harder.

He let her cry for a minute then made another attempt. "Surely you know not to listen to Susan."

Lucy looked up at her brother. "You did," she said weakly.

Peter didn't say anything because there was no reply, really. He had listened to Susan, let her sway him.

Beside him, Lucy pulled herself into a sitting position. "And it's less true for you," Lucy continued. "You are still a king. I meant what I said."

Peter looked into his sister's tear-streaked face. Her eyes were shining with confidence and faith, not in herself, but in him. He wrapped her in a fierce hug. "Oh Lu," he said. "How could anyone ever call you ridiculous?"

Lucy gave one small sob into his shoulder, and Peter knew Susan's words had cut her deeply. She only gave herself up to it for a second, though, before pulling away and drying her eyes with the corner of his sheet. "I didn't think it would come to this. I never thought Susan would behave this way," she said quietly.

"Neither did I," Peter agreed. "I was sure that somehow she'd turn around one day and remember Narnia."

They sat in silence for a moment, each lost in thoughts of Susan. Lucy's hand crept into Peter's.

"You can't stay here, Peter," Lucy said after awhile.

"I can't go back to Narnia," Peter answered heavily.

"No, that's true. But it's not good for you to be here in London either. You're starting to forget Narnia too."

Peter turned on her, unsure whether to yell or shake her or plead that she was wrong or possibly agree.

"You've been so depressed lately. Even Susan's worried, in her way," Lucy explained.

"If I'm like this, it's because I remember Narnia too well."

"But Peter, in Narnia I never knew you to get depressed. Not like this. Maybe you worried and paced through the halls all night, and maybe you got angry when something was wrong, but you never just gave up. I never once knew you to admit defeat. And so, you were never defeated. You are not yourself anymore."

Peter looked away, into the dark corners of his room. In the silhouette of the streetlamp he could see the plain, straight lines of his desk and chair, his heavy university texts stacked neatly on the desk. A simple blazer hung on the back of the door. Even as he saw these things in a real England he saw with double vision his bright bedchamber in Cair Paravel: the elegant lines of the furniture and the delicate silk of his bedclothes, the scrolls illuminated in lovely bright inks, his brocade cloak hanging in the corner. Lucy was right, he would never have given in for a moment in Narnia. But here, everything had a dull film over it, including himself.

"Peter, you can be who you were," Lucy said with certainty. "I know."

Edmund's cry broke through their contemplations. "Peter! Peter, have you found Lucy?"

"We're in here, Ed!" Peter called back.

A second later Edmund appeared in the doorway still looking distinctly tousled. He turned on Peter's desk lamp so a little light warmed the dark room and sat down in the desk chair. "It's no good," he said with a deep sigh. "She won't listen to anything."

Peter's eyebrows knit together. "What did you say to her?"

Edmund leaned back in the chair and smiled ruefully. "At first I ran after her to do…well, something violent. I wasn't sure what. But she's fast, and when I finally got a hold of her my conscience had got the better of me. I just tried to talk to her. She wouldn't have it though. I tried it from every angle I could think of: her conscience, her love for us, the idea that deep down she knows Aslan and hasn't forgotten him." His eyes grew bright as he concluded "She doesn't want to remember. She still knows all of this, but she's trying as hard as she can to forget."

Lucy got up to give Edmund a hug, comforting him even as she was crying herself. "I don't understand why anyone would want to forget Narnia."

Peter didn't say anything. Scarily, he understood all too well what Susan was going through. Did that mean the same would happen to him?

"Edmund, I told Peter about what we talked about. How he should get away," Lucy said.

"Did you? I'm glad."

"You agree with her?" Peter asked.

"It was my idea," Edmund explained. "You need some space to think, and you certainly won't get it in London. You need some quiet to remember who you are."

"But where--?"

"The Professor said he'd love to have you again," Lucy said. "Don't be angry, but Edmund said we should write him on your behalf. And you can talk to him all about it. He would know very well."

Edmund picked up the thread. "Mum and Dad are willing you should go. They bought your train ticket."

"Train ticket?" Peter asked, bewildered.

Edmund smiled ever so slightly. With the way he was sitting in the chair and his small smile and his good counsel, he was King Edmund all over, and Peter knew without a doubt that he should listen to his brother's sound advice. "You leave the day after tomorrow." And Peter nodded.

Two days later Peter and Edmund and Lucy went down to Paddington station for Peter's train. The station was very busy in a rushed-city sort of way, with young men in suits scurrying with their heads down and briefcases dangling from their hands. Peter watched these men in their uniform black and felt for the ticket in his pocket with gratitude.

He was only half conscious of this movement, though, because his mind was still on what had happened that morning. Lucy had been in his room chattering away and helping him pack. She wasn't talking of much, but the rhythm of her voice was comforting as it always was.

Edmund came in and tossed a pile of random socks into Lucy's lap. "Mom sent these up for you," he explained. Lucy narrowed her eyes a little at Edmund, but she began sorting the socks dutifully, and Peter chuckled at the pair of them.

And then Susan appeared in the doorway, and all three stopped to look at her. "Mum sent me up with a hamper for the train," she explained, her cheeks a little red and her eyes defiant.

Peter stepped forward to take it from her. "Thanks, Su," he said as gently as he could. They looked at each other for a long moment, and Peter couldn't stop himself from beginning "Susan—"

But Susan tossed her head and cut him off. "Good luck, Peter, and safe journey. I want to see you come home happy again." Even though her definition of happiness was quite different from his, Peter could see that she meant well. That she still loved him.

Back at the train station, the whole exchange left him vaguely sentimental, though he couldn't think why. He had a strange foreboding that it would be the last time he would speak to Susan, even though it made little sense. He didn't feel that way about saying goodbye to Edmund and Lucy. Rather, as he embraced them each in turn he promised them he'd see them soon, and he intended on making good on that.

Then came the call for all aboard and Peter got on the train. Edmund and Lucy were standing on the platform just outside his window. Lucy was waving vigorously, but there were tears in her eyes; Edmund stood with his arms folded across his chest, but he was smiling his small smile of a sage.

In addition to the pang Peter felt at leaving them (his departure when he left them for the Professor's last time had been just as awful), he had a stab of annoyance. "Why are they shipping me off like this?" he wondered. "As if I can't make decisions for myself." When the train pulled away he settled back into his seat with some indignance.


	9. Chapter 9

_Chapter 9_

What Peter didn't know was that this indignance was the beginning of the change. He couldn't feel it because it happened slowly, just as you can't feel yourself growing taller. But one day you can see over something you couldn't see over before, or reach something that used to be beyond reach and you know you've grown. This is what was happening to Peter, only he was in the earliest stages, the part where he couldn't see the difference yet. How he changed I'll leave for you to decide, as Edmund and Lucy did when they saw him again.

Polly arrived at the Professor's about a week after Peter. There had been a lot of talking and reminiscing and long sighs from Peter up until that point, and the Professor had borne all the melancholy well for a couple of days. Finally, though, he had to wire his old cheerful friend for reinforcements.

Polly banged through the door just before teatime, and the Professor was so startled that he dropped the box of sugar cubes he had been carrying to the table. Peter quickly stooped to clean them up. It is not easy to clean up sugar that has spilt everywhere, whether in cube form or no, and as a result Peter was still on his hands and knees when she came into the kitchen.

"So this is him, eh?" she said.

Peter looked up and found himself staring in the face of a woman who was quite as old as the Professor, but more substantial and merrier. There was something in her face he liked, though he couldn't decide whether it was her very red cheeks or her keen eyes. He rose to his feet but he didn't know what to say.

"Yes," the Professor said. "This is Peter."

"Hmph," she said, and it was not a very approving noise. She settled herself at the table. "I'll take some tea, Peter."

"There's no sugar," he replied rather dryly.

"Didn't say I took any."

Peter smiled in spite of himself.

He couldn't quite make up his mind if he liked her or not. She was merry and jolly and fun in a way that was not entirely unlike Lucy, but she could also be very brusque. He was not used to be so roughly handled; Susan was always gentle and Lucy always kind, and Edmund—both in Narnia and in England—was growing into the sort of man who counseled with reason rather than rough words. He could still be sarcastic, but not in quite the same way Polly could.

His first meeting with Polly could have told him a lot if he were paying attention, but Peter was in a particularly inattentive mood these days and so noticed little around him. She didn't get through until after supper when the fire was lit and Peter sat by the window writing to Lucy as he promised he would every night.

He paused mid-sentence because he was reminded of a similar time in Narnia when he had sent Lucy an epistle of good cheer when he himself was feeling rather glum. He didn't know anyone observed his introspection until Polly clicked her knitting needles and said decidedly. "I don't like that look on him, Diggory. He looks petulant, like a man pretending to be a boy."

This nettled Peter enough that he got up to take a walk in the night mist. He walked briskly, and every time he slacked his pace he thought of Polly's comment, and so he walked until the blood was flowing in his veins.

The next morning Peter was awake at nine, but he lay awake in his bed trying to sort everything out—Polly, Narnia, what he would do with another empty day in the country, what he might say to Lucy. As a result, he didn't come downstairs for breakfast until ten-thirty. Polly was already washing the dishes.

"Waited for you as long as we could," she explained, "but we were too hungry to wait any longer."

"It's fine," Peter said with a slightly forced smile. "I'll just have some toast."

"Well don't go expecting me to make it for you."

He forced the grin a little wider. "I wasn't."

Peter took another walk and had his toast outside. It was a restless sort of summer day. The sky was blue, but not a clear blue, and the air was sticky. The possibility of a storm hung in the air, but somehow he liked the rushing sound of the high summer wind in the leaves. He stayed outside again, watching the horses at pasture in the neighboring farm, wandering by a swift running stream. He wandered in some time after twelve but didn't think much of it; he and the Professor had no set mealtimes.

Polly did, however, and she was rather sharp-tongued about having kept the food waiting. She sent verbal jabs across the table all during the meal, but she left the final blow for the end of the meal. Peter got up and graciously cleared away the dishes. He knew better than to expect thanks from Polly, but he certainly did not expect her to say "What, and I suppose you want praise for playing the role of a scullery maid?" She snorted. "Hardly a great feat. Diggory, I really have a hard time believing that this is the High King Peter whose name was invoked in Narnia for hundreds of years as memory of a golden age."

She didn't turn at the clatter; she knew Peter had almost thrown the dishes into the sink. He was staring at her and getting very red in the face, but of course, she didn't turn around to see it. Peter thought of a good many things to say; so many, in fact, that they choked him and he wound up not saying anything at all, but stalking out of the house. This was probably for the best as he did not find it courteous, whether in Narnia or in England, to yell at a lady or an elder.


	10. Chapter 10

_Chapter 10_

He walked with brisk, wide strides, following instinct rather than will. Underneath an elm tree he found a straight branch, and he picked it up and swung it as he walked. He didn't realize that his fingers were remembering old sword parries - not the rapier thrusts he had studied in fencing at university, but the old battle swings from his careers in Narnia.

He came at last to the fence that separated the Professor's small property from the wide acreage of the neighboring farm. There in the field the farmer's sons were breaking in a stallion. It was a fine horse, a strong palomino with rippling muscles and a waving tail. One was holding the horse by the reins and the other carried the saddle in his arms and both were calling "Whoa" as the horse incessantly stamped and snorted.

All at once the horse reared up, tossing its front hooves in the air. As it came down, the boys scattered, and Peter looked into the eyes of the horse. He expected to see the wild look of a wild horse, and he was surprised when he saw that the horse was much more intelligent than that—not wild, but angry. He had seen the eyes of angry horses so many times in Narnia, understood the way they gnashed their teeth and the sound of their whinnys, that he understood this horse.

Of course he wasn't foolish enough to believe that this horse could talk, but he sympathized with it nonetheless. He could see at once that the horse wasn't bred for farm work. Really it was a war charger, but that life was closed to it; they didn't use cavalry in war any longer. Peter was so moved by the horse fighting against the life it had to live that he called out to the young men "That is a fine horse you have there, sirs."

He did not realize he used the word "sirs," it merely seemed the natural way for him to speak. The young men took no notice of it either.

"Fine, but wild," one of them agreed. "We've been trying to break him for a week."

"I could help," Peter offered.

The bigger one looked him over. "You don't look like you have much experience with horses, friend."

The other cut him short. "It doesn't matter. It's an extra pair of hands, and we can tell him what to do."

The first one nodded once, and Peter leapt over the fence with an athletic agility that impressed the farmer boys. They were hardy, but neither could ever be called graceful. Peter murmured to the horse in low, deep tones, and it stopped trying to rear up and merely pawed the ground. He moved forward at a slow, steady pace until he could reach out and touch the horse's neck. The horse tossed its head, but Peter's movements were sure as he stroked its neck.

"I know it," he murmured. "I know."

The next thing everyone knew, the horse was nudging Peter with his nose and nickering softly. "Quick," Peter whispered as he took the reins, "the saddle."

The younger of the two rushed forward with the saddle and quickly, though with many quiet assurances from Peter, they secured it around the horse. The older brother stood back and watched and when he saw the success of the operation whistled and said "Well, I'll be blowed."

Peter turned to him with shining eyes. "May I ride him?"

"Ride him? If you can get this horse to take a rider in one afternoon I'll…" here he apparently didn't know quite what he would do, for he finished lamely "Go on, have a go."

The thing that surprised these boys more than anything was seeing Peter swing up into the saddle. They thought that if he knew anything about riding at all it would be the kind one does on Rotten Row in Hyde Park; all walking and very refined, where the grooms always do all the hard work. This strange young man, though he had the look of a city boy softened and paled by university, swung into the saddle with a natural ease. "Glory be," said one to the other, "he has the truest seat of a horseman I've seen."

The other, who had read the right kind of books, declared "He sits like a knight."

Peter heard these comments but pretended he hadn't. He stroked the horse's mane and then leaned over so he could whisper in its ear "And now we shall do what you have been dying to do. We shall go for a gallop, in a straight shot across the fields, swifter and straighter than my sister the Queen Susan shoots an arrow." Then he sat up straight and gave a cry and kicked the horse in its sides (but not too hard, just enough to get it going).

The horse took off, and they went streaking across the land. The land was a green blur and the sky a maze of blue, and they were going so fast that finally all of Peter's old thoughts and worries fell away from him as he felt the rush of a full gallop. He didn't even give a second thought to what he had said to the horse before they took off.

They galloped for a long while, but eventually the horse got tired and Peter directed him towards a brook he could see some ways away. When he slowed enough to take notice of things again, he saw that the sky was an opalescent white and the air was stickier than ever. Gray clouds were slung low in the sky here and there, and they were beautiful in a lonely sort of way. Rain was coming.

The shower washed over everything with a soft pattering sound. Peter tied the horse to a tree and stood under the water for a moment, lifting up his hands and his face to the sky. The water was cool and he was hot from riding.

After he had cooled a bit, he went to sit under the tree with the horse and waited for the rain to end. As he sat watching from between the low hanging willow branches, he thought of Lucy who would wander through the dripping gardens and forests around Cair Paravel until she came down with more than her share of colds. When she came back, though, her face was always shining. Peter thought she must have been thinking of, or even talking to, Aslan. He dared to send out a little prayer himself.

"Aslan, please. I need Narnia. Or I need You. I'm lost, and I don't know the way."

He waited for a sign that his prayer had been heard, but all that happened was presently the rain stopped and the sun glowed a little behind the clouds, making them white again. None of this was quite significant enough for Peter, but he mounted his horse feeling refreshed and enjoyed the long canter back to the farm.

"Now there's something like," Polly said when Peter walked in sometime later, his clothes looking rather bedraggled but his eyes fresh and restful.

Peter smiled at her honestly this time. "Lady," he said, "You have abused me far more than is my wont. And I thank you for it."

Polly's eyes twinkled. "It's what you needed."


	11. Chapter 11

_Chapter 11_

Now even Peter began to see the change in himself. He no longer wanted to sit still and gaze out the window, and he very nearly had to force himself to stay sedentary long enough to write letters to Lucy. Love her though he did, he hated the feeling of inactivity.

More often than not he was out riding the palomino. So far he was the only rider the horse would take, and Peter could guess why. "You only want to be recognized for what you are," he smiled as they took to a path in the woods at a walk. "And you are a noble charger, not a cart-horse."

The horse tossed his head at this as if nodding, and Peter laughed. If anyone, particularly his brother and sister, had been around to hear it, they would know from the clear sound of his laughter that he was no longer plagued with a troubled mind. Lucy's voice was bright and gay as a bell, but Peter's laugh had always been clear and true as a trumpet, a sound merry and majestic all at once.

"I shall call you Bree," he decided, "After a horse the Prince Cor once introduced me to."

This time he heard the words he said, and he remembered the old allies of Narnia in Archenland. He sighed, and there was an echo of petulance to it. Though Peter was recovering, it was as one recovers from a fever. No one gets better all at once, and if he doesn't take care, he can easily have a relapse. Peter might have been on the edge of one, but he saw up ahead the sun shining straight through the trees, powerful and golden. He urged the newly baptized Bree forward, thinking how he would like to feel that rich light on his shoulders.

The horse stopped right in a pool of sunlight, and Peter just sat in the glow, soaking it up into his very joints for a moment. This was real and rich and warm, true gold finer than the crown he had borne on his head and softer than the silk of his Narnian clothes. He stretched, and he patted Bree's neck and murmured, "Once a king in Narnia, always a king in Narnia.

All at once he remembered that the Professor had said once a king, always a king, but he was not the first person Peter heard it from. Aslan had said it at his own coronation, and He had added the commandment "Bear it well, sons of Adam."

Was he bearing it well? He had in Narnia…or he had done his best, at any rate. He was doing far from that here. And yet Edmund had reminded him that once he said he could bear it, a life in England without hope of returning to Narnia. Peter had been mooning about how, but now he realized it was like fighting a battle: he just had to do it. He _had_ to bear with this England, and once he got started he knew it would be easier than it seemed. After all, Lucy and Edmund were rather successful.

Moreover, here was this fine sunlight and these green woods. When he returned, he could talk with the brothers, or help their fair sister bring in the milk. At night there would be company and good cheer. He and Polly and the Professor would sit and reminisce, but it would be nice to talk of that place, not sad. On the morrow, perhaps, there would be a letter of strength and good cheer from Edmund and a package from Lucy. She hinted that his blanket was nearly done and he was eager to have the Narnian souvenir woven by his sister's hand. Certainly there were beautiful things in this life. Perhaps no one addressed him as High King, but that didn't mean he couldn't be one anyway.

He thought vaguely that he ought not be idle but make some plans. He wished Edmund was there; his brother was very good with that sort of thing. When Peter lacked an idea or a part of the plan, or too many ideas swam at him at once, Edmund had always been good at sorting things out or adding the missing piece, be it logistical details or plain common sense.

In thinking of Edmund, Peter's half-formed notions of plans for his own future were overtaken by a very strong desire to see his brother and sister again. He would have liked to see both sisters, but he doubted Susan would come, though one day they would perhaps make up. There was at least reason to hope from the way they said goodbye. His head was quite suddenly so full of things he would like to do with Lucy and Edmund that he turned Bree around and cantered all the way back to the Professor's, for he was resolved that they should come too, for a little while at least.

He strode into the house prepared to make a speech, but not a word of it made it to his mouth. Polly and the Professor were sitting by the fire, which was not unusual in itself. What Peter found odd was the fact that their afternoon tea was untouched and they wore serious expressions as they leaned close to each other in deep conversation. He was unsure whether he should go or stay, but they heard his footstep and looked up.

"Ah, Peter. Good," the Professor said. "I must ask you to run to the telegraph office in town—we need to gather everyone. I feel—though I can't say how—that something is amiss in Narnia."

Peter felt himself go pale. "What do you mean, sir?" he asked.

The Professor chuckled at his expression, but it was somewhat of a false chuckle. "There's no need to look so alarmed. It's just a feeling I have in my bones. Only I think it's best that we call the others. Don't you?"

"Oh. Yes, sir." Peter drew himself up. "I'll send a wire to Lucy and Edmund." He turned to leave, but Polly called after him.

"And Jill and Eustace. Don't forget them," she reminded. "And Peter—"

"Yes?"

"Try not to look so worried. "You've saved Narnia before, haven't you?"


	12. Chapter 12

_Chapter 12_

Lucy sat at the window seat of their train compartment, watching the shadow of the train flick across the fields and thinking vaguely of sailing the Eastermost Seas on the Dawn Treader. Jill and Eustace were talking about the bottom of the world, and Edmund said nothing and appeared to be lost in thought.

Edmund pulled the crumpled telegram out of his pocket and read it for the umpteenth time, although this time he read aloud. "Come at once to the Professor's – stop. Narnia needs us all – Stop. Wire your train – Stop. Peter."

"How many times have you read that telegram?" Jill asked suspiciously.

"Not enough. I still don't know what's going on. What does yours say?" Edmund pressed.

"Practically the same thing," Eustace said. "It's a telegram—it's not exactly going to be eloquent."

"No," Lucy said thoughtfully, turning from the window, "But you don't understand what Peter's been like. He hasn't been himself."

Edmund took up what Lucy was saying. "And I can't tell whether or not he's…better. At least, not from this message."

"But you're missing the most important part!" Jill protested. She had not met Peter, only heard about him, and this made the eldest Pevensie far less interesting to her. "What about Narnia? What's going on there?"

Nobody had an answer to anything, and the conversation quickly lapsed while everyone nursed their private speculations. At last they arrived, and as the Professor had no car to collect them from the station, Edmund secured a taxi. The ride to his house was very quiet because it was very tense, and that was why it felt so very long.

Polly and the Professor greeted them warmly, but Peter was nowhere to be seen. After her affectionate hellos, Lucy asked about him immediately. "Where's Peter?" she asked.

"Oh, out and about," Polly answered lightly. "He does a lot of meandering these days."

Lucy exchanged a look with Edmund. "Meandering" was not exactly Peter's style. At least, it didn't use to be.

At that moment, Eustace came running from around the backyard and stammered "Edmund—Lucy—Pole—you'd better come see."

The whole company rushed around back, and as soon as the back fence came into view Lucy gasped and stopped short. Peter was sitting on a magnificent palomino and smiling; the horse was swishing its tail. True the horse was beautiful, and in any other moment she would have rushed to him to feel the velvet of his nose, but she couldn't take her eyes off her brother.

Edmund walked into Lucy from behind. He was about to prod her forward when he looked in the direction she was staring. Then he let out a whoop of joy. If he had been wearing a hat, he would have flung it into the air.

Now Peter laughed, and Edmund and Lucy heard the rich sound of it and knew what it meant. "Welcome, friends of Narnia!" he called. "You are well met!"

"Well met indeed!" Edmund replied, his entire face splitting into a huge smile. He rushed forward and Peter leapt off his horse and they embraced each other as kings and brothers. Then Lucy came forward too and Peter held her tight for a second.

"I'm sorry I'm so late," he explained. He still had one arm around Lucy. "I was riding and I completely forgot about the time." The sun shone on his shoulders.

Even though he was dressed in ordinary trousers and a plain shirt, Peter cut a kingly figure. His voice rang with such surety and merriment that Eustace, who had not seen Peter since before his first visit to Narnia, whistled under his breath. "I know I was stupid before, but I don't see how I could have failed to notice Peter. He's kinglier than Caspian!"

"He's the one they call the High King," Jill murmured. She had never met Peter, but she could tell.

They all trooped inside for dinner. Lucy and Jill helped Polly with the cooking, and with Lucy's clear memory and Polly's clever use of herbs, they were able to turn the simple meal of a soup and a joint and some potatoes into something that was almost Narnian. As soon as Edmund tasted the food, he was reminded at once of the simple meal he had eaten with Peter in a huntsman's lodge when they went out gaming in the Western Wood with Cor and Corin. He told the story of how Corin wanted to box the wild boar they had been hunting, much to the amusement of the company.

Then Lucy remembered the finding of Corin and the Battle of Anvard and what happened to Rabadash and how Edmund did such a fine job leading the battle, and Edmund told about the dangerous escape from Tashbaan on the _Splendour Hyaline_.

The talk of boats made Eustace remember the _Dawn Treader_ and he told of how he became a dragon and was restored by Aslan, a story of great interest to Peter, since he had never heard Eustace himself tell it. He had only heard what Lucy and Edmund had said afterwards.

All of them spoke of Caspian, and Peter wondered aloud, a little sadly, "I wonder if we'll ever meet again?"

"I should think so!" Eustace cried, even though his mouth was very full of potatoes and some sprayed out on the table. He swallowed hard and said "Didn't I tell you all of the last thing that happened after we rescued Prince Rilian?"

Everyone except Jill shook their heads, so Eustace told the story. "We got back to the harbour and Rilian went forward to meet his father, but something was wrong. He saw Rilian all right, but after he had blessed his son, Caspian died."

Here Lucy's eyes filled with very bright tears and Edmund balled up his napkin very tight.

"Caspian died?" Peter echoed numbly.

Eustace nodded and couldn't speak, so Jill took up the story. "He was terribly old by then." She meant this as a word of comfort, to show that he had not suffered, but it only made the others sadder.

"I can't imagine him _old_," Edmund said. "Not after the _Dawn Treader_."

"Not after the second Battle of Beruna," Peter put in.

Lucy shook her head. "Not after anything. I can't believe—Caspian? Dying?"

"But there's more!" Jill cried somewhat impatiently. "You're all getting depressed and you're not listening to the end of the story! After he died Aslan showed up and he blew us to the Eastern End of the world—"

"On top of the mountains that we saw when we arrived in the _Dawn Treader's _boat," Eustace put in.

Jill continued. "We were talking with Him, and then we looked in the stream and there was Caspian, old as anything, lying in it, still dead. Even Aslan cried."

Now the three Pevensies were crying themselves, but crying without making any noise. Edmund reached across the table and took Lucy's hand.

"But then Aslan had Eustace drive a thorn into his paw. It must have been horrible and terribly hard to do, but Eustace did it anyway. A drop of the lion's blood fell into the stream above Caspian, and quite suddenly it was as if time went backwards, and he started getting younger. His wrinkles smoothed and his beard grew short and disappeared and his hair turned from gray to yellow."

Here Eustace picked up the story. "After he had gotten up and greeted Aslan he saw me, and the first thing he asked about was his second-best sword."

Edmund and Lucy laughed heartily at this joke, but Eustace had to explain it to everyone else. "I broke it trying to fight the Sea Serpent. It was a useless thing to do, trying to hack at that huge monster with one little sword. In the end it was Reepicheep who had the right idea of pushing it off the boat."

"Still, it was a very brave thing," Lucy added.

Eustace blushed a little. Then he continued the story. "Well, anyway, he told Aslan that he always wanted to see our world, and Aslan said he could."

"There were some bullies chasing us before we found our way into Narnia," Jill explained, "And Aslan sent Caspian to help us teach them a lesson, only he made the boys promise to only use the flats of their swords. He was only there for five minutes before he went back, but still."

Eustace nodded. "After seeing Caspian get young again like that, I've always had quite a lot of hope about the future.

"So perhaps we _will_ all meet again," Peter mused.

"I'm quite sure of it," Jill said decidedly.

This cheered them all, but in a way that makes you happy rather than talkative. Each was thinking about the person they would most like to see again, and they were all lost in that daydream until presently Edmund said, "But there's one story we haven't heard yet that I would very much like to know. Peter, how is it that you became yourself again?"


	13. Chapter 13

_Chapter 13_

Peter looked at the company and saw that all were curious to know. "I'm not really sure how it began," he said. "It may have been when you and Lucy put me on the train, Edmund. I didn't like the idea of being packed up and shipped off. Or it may have been later, when Polly came and she told me I didn't seem like a king at all, much less High King of Narnia. It may have been earlier too, when Lucy told me I was a king still, and when I saw her unshakeable faith in what had happened to us.

"Wherever it began, things began to reach their end after I tamed the horse. We went riding together, and it rained, and I prayed to Aslan. We went riding again, and this time the sun shone on me and I remembered that Aslan had told me—told us all—'Once a King or Queen in Narnia, always a King or Queen in Narnia,' but he also gave us the commandment to 'bear it well.' And Edmund had reminded me that I said I could bear it the last time I was in Narnia, that I could even bear leaving.

"But I haven't. I have been blessed enough to live twice, and I am making a muddle of a glorious second chance. Maybe I'm not called a king here, but that doesn't make this earth less beautiful. And I think that's what Aslan meant—to carry Narnia with you, and to never forget, but never forget to live this life either. Otherwise, what was the point of going at all? I have a feeling Narnia was meant to strengthen us, not reduce kings into petulant boys." Here he smiled at Polly, who winked back.

"Oh, Peter!" Lucy clapped her hands with delight. "That's just how I've always felt!"

"I know you have, Lu. And that's what helped me all along. I saw what would happen if I had faith. And so," here Peter stood, and raised his glass "A toast. To Narnia: a thanksgiving for the miracles Aslan has given us, and a prayer that we may keep them close to our hearts always. For we need Narnia, we need to keep it close to our hearts."

Everyone rose to their feet and cried "To Narnia!" and drank a long draught.

When they had settled in their seats again, the Professor spoke. "Come to that, I must tell you what I brought you here for. Narnia needs us just as well." Everyone grew solemn again waiting for him to speak. "I have had the strangest feeling that something's wrong. I told Peter to wire you all because I feel there must be something we can do. I don't know how—"

He broke off because Lucy, Jill, and Eustace had suddenly jumped to their feet. Jill gave a small cry of surprise. All three of them were staring at the corner of the room in such a way that made the others turn. What they saw made Polly gasp as if someone had thrown a bucked of cold water on her, and the Professor's hand shook so much he swept his glass off the table. The glass made a far-away tinkling sound as it hit the floor.

Peter was staring too, and when he heard the glass shatter he knew it couldn't be a dream because he didn't awaken and the phantom didn't disappear. He found himself staring at a young man, lean and athletic and a couple of years older than himself, who carried himself like a king and wore Narnian clothes. He would have been joyful had the king not looked so distraught and if he had not realize after a moment more that the king was bound. He realized his hand was clenched into a tight fist. Now was the hour he had been waiting for without knowing it.

Peter said in a clear and commanding voice, "Speak, if you're not a phantom or a dream. You have a Narnian look about you, and we are the seven friends of Narnia."

The others were now looking between Peter and the apparition, but Peter's eyes never left the strange king. He could see that this man was trying to get some message to them all, but could say nothing. A voice inside him that was not his own told Peter he knew what to do; he knew who he was and who everyone expected him to be. Peter looked right into his eyes and rose and said in a ringing voice "Shadow or spirit or whatever you are, if you are from Narnia, I charge you in the name of Aslan, speak to me. I am Peter the High King."

* * *

_Yes, I realize I left everyone on a cliffhanger, but C.S. Lewis himself wrote the rest in "The Last Battle." I personally always find that book really hard to read (emotionally), but still, Peter's journey ends for me in this moment. Plus, his exile's about to end. _:)

_ Incidentally, if anyone out there is thinking I'm trying to pawn C.S. Lewis' magnificent characters off as my own, to that I say "Shpffff." This is story is pure tribute to one of my all-time favorite series. I have actually done my best to keep all references to the books entirely canonical and draw all my characters from how they are portrayed in the books. To that end, I must say that Peter's last two spoken lines verbatim and the details of the very end are taken directly from The Last Battle, pp. 42-23, Collier Books Edition 1970._

_ To all my faithful readers: many many thanks for your reviews and for sticking with this story until the very end. It took a long time getting there! This story is about twice as long as I thought it would be, but all the encouragement made me very long winded. Just as a point of reference, this is a whopping 44 pages in Word if you put all the chapters together. I'm not exactly known for my brevity, but I am trying a one-shot next. Knowing me, it'll be more than one chapter, but at least it won't be 13. The reviews were all lovely and your kind words mean so much to me. Keep it coming!_

_ - Francie_


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